The people of Nkrumah, a predominantly farming community in the Atwima-Mponua District, have appealed to the government to reactivate a collapsed gari-processing plant to boost their economic activities.

The plant, they said, was a vital economic lifeline, especially for women not only in the town but other nearby communities.

Its collapse about three years ago was having far-reaching consequences for the livelihood of the people and making things pretty difficult for them.

Mr. Iddrisu Salifu, the assembly member, made the appeal through the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at Nkrumah.

The plant was established by the 31st Women’s Movement in 1994, to boost cassava farming in the area and had provided the backbone to the area’s economy.

Reporters of the nation’s wire service had gone to the place under STAR-Ghana’s sponsored media auditing and tracking of development projects, an initiative launched to put the spotlight on how government’s resources were helping to transform the lives of the people, particularly those in the rural communities.

The goal is to aid transparency, promote accountability and good local governance. Mr. Salifu described the plant as yet another example of unsustained projects with resources going down the drain.

“We certainly cannot continue to travel this path - there must be a change of cause to save such important enterprises,” he added.

Mr. Salifu said attempts at getting the district assembly to step in to bring the factory back to life had been unsuccessful and cited severe budgetary constraints as the reason.

He said some of the machines in fairly good condition were getting rusty.